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To what Extent aee Drawing and Manual 
Training related? 

BY 

FRANK M. LEAVITT, 
w 

Assistant Director of Drawing and Manual Training. 



Paper read before the Boston Normal Art School Alumni 
Association, Jan. 19, 1907. 






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1VSAY ^ ^ 7 

D. Uf D. 



TO WHAT EXTENT ARE DRAWING AND MANUAL 
TRAINING RELATED? 



Let me say at once that I shall treat my subject frankly 
from the manual training standpoint. As seen from this point 
of view, I shall state anew the purposes of giving instruction 
in drawing and the purposes of giving instruction in manual 
training, selecting those more commonly given by interested 
advocates of these two branches of school work to-day. 

What I have to say is very simple and has often been said 
before; but it sometimes happens that old truths stated in a 
new way, and especially old truths placed in new relations, 
assume new significance and have a new value. It is my hope 
that we may come to some clearer understanding of the relation 
between drawing and manual training by comparing the various 
purposes for which they are said to be taught. 

The purposes of giving instruction in drawing in, let us say, 
our public schools, are, as I have gleaned them from various 
sources, as follows : — 

1. To develop the habit of observing, with some care and 
accuracy, the appearance of the common objects with which 
we come in daily contact. 

2. To develop some facility in expressing graphically the 
facts thus observed. This facility is thought to be desirable 
because of the added power which another form of expression 
naturally gives, because it helps a pupil to clarify his ideas 
regarding any visible thing, and because it enables him to illus- 
trate other school work. 

3. To develop ability to make and to read simple working 
drawings. 

4. To give some acquaintance with color, — knowledge of 
its theory, appreciation of its effects and practice in its appli- 
cation. 



5. To impart some knowledge of great works of art, ancient 
and modern, usually considered under the heads picture study 
and historic ornament. 

6. To give an insight into the principles of design, including 
application to material. 

7. To develop the aesthetic sense, which enables one, as John 
Cotton Dana says, " to see clearly, to discriminate and to feel." 

What, now, are the alleged purposes of giving instruction in 
manual training? Let me, parenthetically, call attention to 
the fact that quite as the word " drawing " very inadequately 
expresses the purport of the work now done under that head, 
so the term " manual training " is only in a small degree de- 
scriptive of the subject as it is embodied in the school life of 
to-day. 

The purposes of giving instruction in manual training are 
said to be as follows : — 

1. To develop habits of neatness, order and exactness. 

2. To afford some facility in the use of tools, and some knowl- 
edge of the processes by which common materials are bent and 
formed and fashioned into the articles with which we daily 
come in contact. This facility is thought to be desirable be- 
cause it furnishes added means of expression ; because it calls 
the pupil's attention (to some extent at least) to the inevitable 
relation of cause and effect; and because it makes possible a 
greater variety of illustrative school work. 

3. To develop manual skill for industrial ends. 

4. To provide rich and varied motor training, that increased 
mental power may result. 

5. To provide a rational basis for the study of typical in- 
dustries. 

6. To prolong the school life of some of our pupils by ap- 
pealing to their natural interest in constructive work, and es- 
pecially in that which possesses possible industrial value. 

I believe that a thoughtful comparison of the purposes of 
drawing with the purposes of manual training, as here given, 
will show that in certain respects the subjects are supplemen- 
tary, while in others they are almost wholly independent. 

I shall call attention first to some phases of manual training 
in which its purposes differ widely from those of drawing. The 



benefit to be derived from such consideration here consists 
mainly in this, — that fuller knowledge of our aims will gain 
for us respect where sometimes there has been lack of appre- 
ciation. This is important, for there must be mutual respect 
if drawing and manual training teachers are to work together 
successfully. 

You will note that both drawing and manual training are 
sometimes considered, not as subjects of instruction themselves, 
but as methods of teaching other subjects. Manual training is 
an excellent preparation for and an aid in the teaching of physics, 
for example. Constructive work gives the pupil, at first hand, 
a knowledge of some of the properties of matter, and the proc- 
esses involved illustrate some of the laws of physics. A man 
might have a theoretical knowledge of all the laws of physics, 
but without some practice in the mechanic arts he would find 
little opportunity for the application of them. 

A moment's reflection will show us what important contri- 
butions the mechanic arts have made to nearly all phases of 
applied natural science, — gravitation, heat, light, electricity, 
giving us our marvellous means of locomotion, of transmission 
of power and of communication, and the whole field of optics, 
including the many varied applications of the microscope, tele- 
scope and camera. Without knowledge of mechanical principles 
and processes the mental attitude of our ingenious inventors 
would have been impossible, and the intricate and accurate 
scientific instruments and machines would not have been 
forthcoming. The foundation of this knowledge of mechanical 
principles and this possession of mechanical experience is laid 
by the simple, straight, square, exact work of our manual train- 
ing, at which our more artistic brothers among the drawing 
teachers sometimes laugh, and for which they sometimes criti- 
cise us. There is, therefore, much of our manual training 
work which has little evident relation to some of the pictorial 
or ornamental phases of our art work, but which is none the 
less artistic within its own sphere. 

In this connection may I quote from an address by Mr. 
Milton P. Higgins, president of the Norton Emery Wheel 
Company, Worcester, Mass. " It is very important," says Mr. 
Higgins, " to ask what kind of drawing or art training will 



6 

best meet the needs of a manufacturer and the needs of a 
mechanic. Must it have to do with art culture? Yes; for the 
mechanic knows art and he appreciates culture, but it must be 
his kind of art and his kind of culture, — still, art and culture 
just the same. Must it have to do with beauty % Yes ; for he, 
the mechanic, loves the beautiful, but not always the same 
beauty that the landscape artist loves, but beauty just as surely." 

If I could, I would paint you a word picture of a beautiful 
landscape, rich in color and vibrant with light, and I would 
ask you to try to realize the paucity of the soul which could not 
receive pleasure from its contemplation. Poor also is he who 
can listen to one of Beethoven's sublime symphonies without 
being thrilled by its beauty and grandeur. But what of the 
man who can stand unmoved before a Corliss engine, which is 
so perfectly designed and so accurately constructed that it 
silently does the work of five hundred horses ? Does not he 
also lack something of complete appreciation of the beautiful % 
It is this kind of beauty, I think, to which Mr. Higgins refers. 

I have intimated that drawing teachers may occasionally 
overlook the importance of certain phases of our manual train- 
ing work. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that 
manual training teachers sometimes fail to appreciate the value 
of some of the drawing, the final results of which must be 
sought for in the developed aesthetic sense which enables one 
" to see clearly, to discriminate and to feel." 

An examination of those forms of manual training which 
have been given for the specified purpose of developing mental 
power will show another instance in which manual training 
has been developed independently of drawing. In this con- 
nection it is necessary to examine briefly the historical or social 
setting of the manual training movement. 

Two generations ago the majority of our youth were growing 
up in rural districts, in villages or in small towns. Even those 
in the more highly educated classes had only a few weeks' 
schooling, were in close contact with nature, and had ample 
opportunity for useful and varied manual work. Incidentally 
they became acquainted with whatever industrial life there 
was in their immediate environment. 

On the other hand, those who were preparing for an indus- 



trial life were cared for by the apprenticeship system then in 
vogue, which provided not only for instruction in the chosen 
trade, but, at the same time, for a certain amount of schooling. 
In neither case were children taken from life to be educated 
for life, but a rational and intimate relationship was maintained 
between work and study. According to Mr. William Noyes 
of Teachers' College, it is the present mission of our schools to 
re-establish this relationship between work and study. T have 
heard many men speak on the subject of manual training in 
the last fifteen years, and, without exception, the men of great 
breadth of view and of profound learning have emphasized 
the importance of manual training in this particular. Men 
differing as widely in their educational work as Dr. Dunton, 
formerly of the Boston Normal School, Dr. G. Stanley Hall 
and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, have all insisted that this 
combination of work and study produced men and women of 
superior mental and moral fiber, and that it is the chief pur- 
pose of manual training to re-establish the true balance between 
manual work and book work. 

The recent report of the Massachusetts Commission on In- 
dustrial and Technical Education says : — 

City life instead of rural life, life in tenements and flats instead of 
in houses, together with the increase of wealth, have combined to deprive 
great numbers of children of these opportunities for industrial activity 
which were inseparable from life on the farm. Well-to-do people are 
everywhere lamenting that there is nothing for their children to do. 
The children are always receiving and never giving. Food, clothing, 
shelter, education, amusement, — all come to them as freely as the air 
and the sunshine. 

The effects of these changes repeatedly brought to the attention of the 
commission are not most serious where we might naturally expect, in a 
lack of manual efficiency, though that is marked, but on the intellectual 
and moral side. There is a one-sided sense of values, a one-sided view 
of life and a wrong attitude toward labor. Not having any share in 
productive labor, and being out of touch with it, the youth have no 
standards by which to measure time or possessions or pleasures in terms 
of cost. Many persons believe that about this point center some of the 
gravest present-day social problems. 

No summary, however brief, of the influences which have 
inspired and modified the manual training movement, should 



fail to include some mention of the contribution made by those 
who studied the question from the standpoint of physiological 
psychology. Briefly stated, their conclusions were as follows: 
The larger part of the brain is that which is affected by and 
which controls motor activity. The larger part of the motor 
area of the brain is that which is related to the hand. There- 
fore, much use, and especially the varied and purposeful use, 
of the hand results in a development of the motor area of the 
brain, and, by association or contagion, as it were, in the im- 
provement of the whole mental structure. The chief aim of 
manual training, according to this theory, is to multiply and 
enrich the motor experiences. The well-developed brain is one 
which possesses a great variety of motor memories. It is safe 
to say that this theory has materially affected the practices of 
scores of manual training teachers. I am inclined to believe, 
however, that it has far less influence to-day than it had ten 
years ago, and that the more obvious social and industrial pur- 
poses are controlling or shaping our manual training work. I 
submit, however, in so far as the above theory is valid and valu- 
able, in so far as the important thing is to increase and enrich 
the motor memories, that manual training must be governed by 
other considerations than the correlation with drawing. 

It is, however, in those phases of drawing and manual train- 
ing which are supplementary that we are most vitally inter- 
ested, and I turn with pleasure from the foregoing somewhat 
academic discussion to two practical considerations. 

The report of the Commission on Industrial and Technical 
Education shows that drawing and manual training had a 
common origin in the schools of Massachusetts, as both were 
authorized by legislative enactments which were prompted 
solely by industrial considerations. If we can accept the con- 
clusions of the commission, neither has served to any consider- 
able extent the end for which it was authorized ; both have gone 
wide of the mark and both share in the common condemnation. 
The report says : " The result has been that drawing in the 
schools has become more and more exclusively cultural in its 
purpose and method, and the original industrial purpose has 
been largely lost sight of." It also says : " The wide indiffer- 
ence to manual training as a school subject may be due to the 



9 

narrow view which has prevailed among its chief advocates. 
It has been urged as a cultural subject, mainly useful as a 
stimulus to other forms of intellectual effort, a sort of mustard 
relish, an appetizer, — to be conducted without reference to 
any industrial end. It has been severed from real life as com- 
pletely as have the other school activities. Thus it has come 
about that the overmastering influence of school traditions has 
brought into subjection both the drawing and the manual work." 

This is a somewhat gloomy picture, or it is a challenge, as 
you choose to look at it. Let us, with this stinging criticism in 
mind, take up some of the purposes previously mentioned, and 
see if, by combining the forces of drawing and manual train- 
ing, we cannot make both more vital. 

Take three of the previously expressed purposes of drawing : — 

1. To develop the habit of observing the appearance of 
common objects. 

2. To develop some facility in expressing these facts graphic- 
ally. 

3. To develop the ability to make and to read working draw- 
ings. 

I believe that there is a relation between drawing and manual 
training, regarding the formation of habits of observation and 
the development of facility in graphic expression, which is gen- 
erally overlooked. I also believe that, because the relation be- 
tween manual training and the working drawing is so obvious, 
it is often over-emphasized or misinterpreted. 

In English composition it is thought best to require children 
to write about matters of their own experience, because they 
will then express themselves, not merely repeat words in a 
parrot-like fashion. In the same way, drawing teachers would 
do well to have the children make perspective drawings of the 
models they are to make or have made in the manual training 
room, because these models are of immediate and vital interest 
to them. The facts of form are important to them, and, if they 
are somewhat familiar, they are somewhat new, which cannot 
be said of the type solids. 

Instead of making perspective sketches of the manual train- 
ing models, pupils are generally required to make careful work- 
ing drawings of them. This seems logical, but I believe it is 



10 

unreasonable. Ultimately we wish our pupils to have the ability 
to make and to read working drawings. It is as illogical to 
have the children read only the drawings which they them- 
selves have made as it would be to have them read only such 
English as they themselves had written. The reading of work- 
ing drawings can best be taught by the manual training teacher. 
Carefully prepared drawings should be furnished for most of 
the models in the earlier years of the work; and the manual 
training teacher fails in his full duty every time he tells his 
pupils a fact of form or dimension which can be learned from 
the drawing. 

To make a working drawing, one must have the ability to 
work with some accuracy, and must understand the method of 
representing, by two or more so-called " views," the facts of 
form and dimension of an object just as they are, not as they 
seem, — in a word, orthographically. 

The ability to ivork accurately can be better developed by 
constructive work than by pencil and straight-edge; and this 
ability can be put to practical use in drafting at twenty-five as 
well as at twelve. In constructive work the child experiences 
the shock of misfit. I borrow the expression from Dr. Frank 
McMurry, who tells interestingly about receiving such a shock 
himself while attempting to fit a screen door. The problem 
was simple: an opening of a given size, a screen door slightly 
larger than the opening, — plane the door until it was the 
same size as the opening. He says : "It is only when one has 
experienced the shock of the misfit between what he has thought 
will hold, on the one hand, and what he finally finds to be true, 
on the other, - — it is only then that one is really sharpened to 
the point of developing good judgment." Children rarely ex- 
perience this shock from inaccuracies in their drawing. 

The understanding of the method of orthographic projection 
is a feat of the imagination, and can be gained at twelve better 
than at twenty-five. It can be gained better by making ten 
free-hand sketches in an hour, orthographically, than by mak- 
ing one such drawing mechanically, — mechanically as to the 
drawing, and also mechanically as to the understanding of it ; 
for it takes the beginner so long to express the thought that 
soon there is no thought to express. 

Therefore, have pupils make pictorial drawings of their 



11 

manual training models. Teach the methods of orthographic 
projection apart from manual training, employing free-hand 
sketches and numerous models, and let the manual training 
teachers teach the reading of working drawings. 

I believe that the most vital relation of drawing and manual 
training, however, is indicated in the two following purposes : 
(1) it is an expressed purpose of manual training to prolong 
the school life of our pupils by providing constructive work of 
a possible industrial value; (2) it is an expressed purpose of 
drawing to give an insight into the principles of design, includ- 
ing application to material. It is precisely here that neither 
drawing nor manual training has been able, alone, to fulfill the 
expectations of its friends and advocates. Working together, 
there is promise of satisfactory results. 

It is worth while for us to appreciate the fact that the in- 
dustrial phases of our work are receiving much attention at this 
time. The last program of the department of superintendence 
of the National Educational Association gave much time to 
the subject, as did the program of the joint session of the East- 
ern Art Teachers Association and the Eastern Manual Training 
Association. More recently the National Society for the Pro- 
motion of Industrial Education was organized in New York, 
with addresses by many prominent men and women. The 
Social Education Congress, which was convened for the first 
time in Boston last November, also gave prominent place to 
the consideration of industrial education. 

The subject of the applied arts has also received much atten- 
tion, and one frequently hears such phrases as " the applied 
arts and their relationship to life," or " applied design as re- 
lated to industry." Notwithstanding that much has been said 
about it, the problem of industrial education is far from being 
solved, for it is a most complicated one. Those who talk learn- 
edly about it have no solution to offer. Some claim that it is 
not the business of the schools to try to solve the problem; but 
I believe that it is a problem, both for our industrial interests 
if they are to maintain even the present mediocre standards, 
and for our educational institutions if they are to hold their 
place in the esteem of the people at large as an important factor 
in our national existence. 

There is grave danger, if the working out is left entirelv to 



12 

the industrial interests, that they may carry over into the shop- 
school the features of present industrial methods which are 
least desirable, — such, for example, as the subdivision of labor 
and the training for great efficiency of effort in a very limited 
field. There would also be a tendency to become over-technical 
and ultra-utilitarian. I believe that it is precisely at this point 
that the educational institutions will tremendously affect the 
problem by bringing to bear the combined forces of drawing 
and manual training. The educational institutions, by their 
very traditions, will tend to uphold the idea that the industrial 
demands will not be met by the development of manual skill 
alone in one set of people and of taste and appreciation alone 
in another set. Skill alone might result in the ability to turn 
out a larger amount of ugly work, and to flood the market with 
goods that are attractive simply because they are cheap. Taste 
and appreciation alone frequently result only in criticism of 
our own, and praise of other times and people. The industrial 
ends will best be served by that training which enables the 
worker to appreciate, even if he does not actually participate 
in, the entire process from design to finish. It is this all-round 
training toward which the schools will naturally tend. 

It remains to make some suggestion as to how the schools 
are to attack the problem. Of course the best way — the only 
way — is to train competent teachers. These teachers will be 
train ed , — if not by normal schools, then by some other agency ; 
but they will be trained. The fact remains that there are not 
to-day a sufficient number of teachers trained in both manual 
and art work to materially affect the problem, and the problem 
is a present problem. Therefore, what is needed immediately 
is the co-operation of our present forces of drawing and manual 
training. Mr. John Cotton Dana, librarian of the Newark 
Public Library, says : " This is already evident, — that the 
teacher of drawing and art in the schools is going to get the 
strongest and best argument for the continuance and the ex- 
pansion of her work from the relations it will have with things 
made with the hands." In all grades we see teachers of draw- 
ing trying, and rightly trying, to carry the drawing, the design, 
over into construction ; but in all grades, especially in the 
higher, we find these teachers hampered by their lack of knowl- 



13 

edge and experience regarding materials, tools and processes 
of construction. We find them ignoring the manual training 
room, with its equipment of tools and its teacher, who, by train- 
ing and experience, probably has the ability to work in several 
kinds of material. We find them improvising tools and proc- 
esses whose only recommendation is that they are ingenious. 
Metal work, for example, has thus been done with a pair of 
scissors, a bottle and a nail. It is especially true in high schools 
that the drawing teacher, who has the ability and the training 
to enable her to teach the designing for half a dozen lines of 
work, confines herself to one, because in that one she has the 
knowledge which permits her to teach, as well, the application 
of the design to material. What is needed here is the co-opera- 
tion of a good, all-round, manual training teacher. 

On the other hand, we find the manual training teacher who 
has become dissatisfied with the making of abstract practice 
pieces, or " useful models " of doubtful utility, reaching out 
into the world of real things, and trying to design furniture, 
etc., ignoring the drawing department, with its technical knowl- 
edge of design, and relying for suggestions on catalogues of 
manufacturers, or on the drawings of other teachers as un- 
taught in the arts as himself. 

Dr. Hale's great word " together " is the great word here 
also. I believe that the barrier which has kept the two school 
activities apart has been personal rather than technical. There 
has generally been an attempt of one to absorb the other, or of 
the other the one. There has been professional jealousy, and, 
worst of all, misunderstanding of the other's purpose and point 
of view. It is of first importance that drawing and manual 
training teachers should be brought to realize their dependence 
each on the other. Neither should be subordinated to the other. 
Over-prominent self-respect should give place to mutual re- 
spect; and it will, when it is understood by each that the other 
has something without which he cannot do his best work. 

With right understanding between the two, there will always 
be conference as to questions of time, ability of the worker, 
limitations of the material, etc., before any project is begun. 
There will be co-operation throughout the entire process, and 
joint satisfaction in the finished product. 



14 

There will also be an effort on the part of both to learn some- 
thing of the " economic idea." There is no time to consider 
that subject here; but the "economic idea" involves questions 
of organization for work, concentration of effort, elimination 
of waste and a consideration of values, — time value, value of 
material, and the value of good workmanship. And may I 
express the belief, in closing, that manual training will make 
an important contribution to art in the schools in this very 
matter of good workmanship. To one engaged in the finer kinds 
of machine tool work it is a common matter to deal with measure- 
ments of one one thousandth of an inch or less. In speaking of 
this fact, I have often noticed the look of incredulity in the faces 
of those who have had no experience in such work. In the same 
way it is incomprehensible to one untrained in the refinements of 
art that the beauty of a curve may be destroyed or the perfect 
rhythm of a design be missed by the deviation of a line by so 
little as a hair's breadth. Even though untrained in art, one 
can the more readily accept this latter statement as a fact be- 
cause he has had experience with the former. And so I believe 
that the person who has learned to have respect for clean-cut, 
accurate work, honest construction and good finish, — in short, 
for good workmanship, — will have become more discriminating 
in regard to the arts, and will have refined, to that extent, 
whatever else he has otherwise acquired of the aesthetic sense. 



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